Taking Flight to a Land of Noodles

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Shigetoshi Nakamura, a chef who once owned ramen restaurants in Hollywood and Tokyo, preparing ramen for participants in the combination culinary class and tasting at Sun Noodle.CreditCreditSuzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

By Tammy La Gorce

March 29, 2013

TETERBORO, N.J. — Before Sun Noodle held its first “ramen flight” here earlier this month, George Kao, the company’s sales manager and host of the event, was up until 1 a.m. studying his notes. The five participants in the combination culinary class and tasting probably would have shown up, though, even without the educational part of the program.

As Peter Buer, who drove from Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with his fiancée, Phoebe Sung, said beforehand, “I just want to eat good ramen.” Two chefs from Nico Kitchen and Bar in Newark — Ryan DePersio, the consulting chef, and Adam Rose, the executive chef — came because of a mutual love of Asian ingredients and the chance to watch a Japanese master chef prepare them. And C. B. Cebulski of Manhattan signed up because he was “obsessed with ramen.”

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Mazemen with egg.CreditSuzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

Sun Noodle’s general manager, Kenshiro Uki, of Fort Lee, N.J., said the demand for ramen on the East Coast led to the opening of the gleaming 6,000-square-foot noodle factory and “ramen lab” — a small, attached test kitchen where Mr. Kao conducted the flight. Mr. Uki and his partner, Shigetoshi Nakamura, opened the business in August.

Mr. Uki’s father, Hidehito Uki, founded Sun Noodle in Hawaii in 1981; though the company expanded to Los Angeles in 2004, “our New York customers still had to buy frozen ramen and have it shipped, and they wanted to improve the quality,” said Mr. Uki, 26.

The Teterboro factory, which has nine employees, makes and sells 100,000 servings a week; a serving is from three and a half to six ounces, Mr. Kao said. It supplies fresh ramen, much of it custom-made, to restaurants including Momofuku Noodle Bar in Manhattan and Ramen Yebisu and Chuko, both in Brooklyn. As Mr. Uki explained, “each restaurant wants a different texture, aroma, appearance and mouth feel.” Sun Noodle churns out more than 30 varieties, tweaking the noodles’ ingredients, moisture content, curliness and width. The company does not sell its products to the public at the factory, but Sun Noodle’s ramen can be bought at H Mart and other Asian grocery stores.

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Tokyo-style noodles, thin and wavy.CreditSuzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

Mr. Uki and Mr. Nakamura, a chef who once owned ramen restaurants in Hollywood and Tokyo, opened the Teterboro location with the idea of educating the public as well as producing noodles. Before the ramen lab, which Mr. Kao described as Sun Noodle’s “R. & D. arm,” opened to the public this month, Chef Naka, as he is known, held customized classes for aspiring ramen restaurateurs and chefs there. They continue; according to Mr. Uki, chefs from across the country have attended, and inquiries have come from as far as Brazil.

The first participants in the ramen flight may have been more well-versed in ramen than Mr. Kao, 35, of Jersey City, had anticipated. Mr. Cebulski, for example, said that as a senior vice president for Marvel Comics, he travels to Japan four or five times a year and eats ramen there every chance he gets.

Still, Mr. Kao, who worked for a sake company in New Jersey before joining Sun Noodle last month, began the session with a brief tour of the factory (hairnets required), to “demystify” the noodle-making process.

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Kyushu-style noodles, thin and straight.CreditSuzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

“Ramen has had a reverse migration in this country,” he said. “It started out as a three-minute instant pack, but now it’s going in the opposite direction, with a lot of sophistication.”

Back in the lab, Chef Naka presented a succession of five bowls of ramen to the participants, while Mr. Kao explained the origin, history and preparation of each. Participants stood at the counter rather than sat, to replicate the experience of a typical Japanese ramen shop, and slurping was encouraged: “It’s not impolite in Japan,” Mr. Kao said.

A first bowl was Tokyo-style, a soup with a base of chicken broth and soy sauce and topped with bamboo shoots and fish cakes. Chef Naka nestled the thin, wavy noodles, which had been boiled in a 30-gallon vat of water, into the broth from individual mesh baskets. “This is what you would have had if you were eating ramen in Tokyo 100 years ago,” Mr. Kao said.

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From left, Peter Buer, Ryan DePersio and Adam Rose attended a session.CreditSuzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

Bowl No. 2, Kyushu-style, was altogether different: the cloudy broth, made from slow-cooked pork shank and pigs’ feet, had a creamy consistency, and fewer noodles — thin, straight ones this time — were added before the soup was garnished with roasted garlic oil, sliced pork, mushrooms and scallions. “The noodles absorb broth at a quicker rate than what you’d find in a Tokyo bowl,” which is why fewer were added, Mr. Kao said.

A third bowl, Sapporo-style, differed from the first two in that thick, wavy noodles were placed in the bowl before the broth and toppings, which were cooked in a wok and included miso, vegetables and ground pork. Because it is “blisteringly cold” in Sapporo, Mr. Kao said, Sapporo-style ramen is very hot in temperature; Chef Naka’s version was also spicy.

Bowls No. 4 and 5 represented modern styles of ramen adapted from the initial three regional styles, according to Mr. Uki, who observed as Mr. Kao led the class. No. 4 was Mazemen, a version of which is served at Momofuku Noodle Bar, Mr. Uki and Mr. Kao said. The ramen lab’s interpretation consisted of thin noodles served in rendered chicken fat with tare, a liquid seasoning. Toppings were a soft-boiled egg that Chef Naka cut in half using fishing line so as not to disturb the yolk, as well as lightly sautéed mushrooms and packaged fried noodles. Around the table, the group declared the chicken fat “yummy.”

The final dish, Tsukemen, had a separate bowl of gravylike broth for dipping the fat noodles.

Mr. Uki plans to schedule the ramen flights weekly, sometimes twice in one day; so far, they have been on Fridays. Those held in March sold out, and the price has been raised to $50 from $40 per person, with the maximum number of participants per flight raised to six. Mr. Kao said those who would like to attend should watch the factory’s Facebook page or Twitter feed (@RamenLab) to learn when the next flight opens for reservations. There is also a standby list for cancellations.

The events are meant to “kick-start the ramen revolution,” Mr. Kao said. “Educating people in the U.S. is fundamental to ramen being understood and appreciated here.”